East London dance-punk agitators CAN’T STOP TALKING have announced their new album TRANSMISSIONS, alongside their latest single ‘Cool People Are Arseholes’.
The track marks the first glimpse of the band’s forthcoming eight-song album and arrives after a breakthrough period for the four-piece, who have picked up support from Spotify’s Fresh Finds Rock and Rock Rotation editorial playlists, national radio backing from Radio X’s John Kennedy and growing acclaim across the independent music press.
Recorded at The Engine Rooms rehearsal studios shortly before the venue closed its doors, ‘Cool People Are Arseholes’ finds CAN’T STOP TALKING sharpening the sound that has quickly become their calling card. Self-produced and mixed by the band, the track comes loaded with jagged post-punk guitars, pummelling rhythms, swaggering bass and a chorus built for collective shouting.
Beneath its infectious energy, ‘Cool People Are Arseholes’ takes aim at the increasingly elaborate performance of modern identity. Clothes, brands, trends and carefully constructed personas all come under scrutiny, with the band turning their gaze towards the culture of appearing effortlessly interesting while questioning how far anyone can really stand outside it.
“‘Cool People’ takes the piss out of the way people try to manufacture a personality through clothes, brands and whatever happens to be fashionable that week. It’s about that endless performance of looking interesting, detached and effortlessly cool, when underneath it all there might not be much going on. But the song isn’t written from a completely superior position. The ‘I can’t leave it’ line is an admission that we’re all caught up in that world to some extent, even while we’re laughing at it.”
Formed in East London, CAN’T STOP TALKING bring together brothers Jamie Autorino on vocals and Daniel Autorino on guitar, with Hannah Pemberton on bass and Luca Volpi on drums. Their songs channel frustration into high-energy dance-punk, combining angular post-punk aggression with alternative-rock heft and the kinetic charge of a packed club show.
The band’s growing live reputation has seen them pack out headline shows across London’s alternative circuit, while a run of acclaimed singles has steadily expanded their audience. Comparisons to IDLES, Viagra Boys and Queens of the Stone Age offer some indication of their territory, but CAN’T STOP TALKING’s combination of humour, abrasion and immediacy gives them a character of their own.
TRANSMISSIONS looks set to capture that energy in its most direct form. The entire album was recorded during the same session at The Engine Rooms, with the band deliberately choosing to preserve the tension and unpredictability of playing together in a room rather than polishing away its rougher edges.
“TRANSMISSIONS is a snapshot of CAN’T STOP TALKING at our most immediate. The eight songs were recorded together during the same session at The Engine Rooms, with the aim of capturing the tension, humour and unpredictability of the band playing live in a room. The songs deal with modern life, ego, frustration, identity and the strange ways people behave around one another. We wanted the recordings to feel connected and human, rather than sanding everything down until it sounded too clean or controlled.”
With ‘Cool People Are Arseholes’ setting the tone, TRANSMISSIONS promises a record rooted in the band’s most immediate qualities: sharp observations, restless energy and songs designed to hit as hard in a sweaty room as they do through a pair of headphones.
